[The Reaper]

I awoke at about 0430 to a clear night sky and a bright three quarter moon. I was amazed at how beautiful the night sky seemed. The stars were so numerous and bright that they gave the appearance of a milky sparkling dust sprayed haphazardly across a deep black canvas. Clear nights like this are generally cold. I could clearly see the vapor of my breath in the dark. I took some time, while I was still in warm clothing, and comfortable, to complete my planned route to my third objective. The route followed the same roads that I used to get to my second objective almost exactly. The difference would come just about four hundred meters north of my first objective. I was to shoot further south to a point about twice the distance from the last objective to my present position. The movement would be a challenge, but only because of the amount of weight I carried. Other than that, I was rested and had a clear mind. I put away all my comfort gear and repacked my rucksack to ensure nothing would fall out. I did a quick sweep of my immediate area to ensure I did not leave anything behind, whether it’d be my any gear, or any MRE garbage. The one good habit I learned being part of a light infantry division as my first duty assignment was to never leave garbage behind in areas I operated in. The tactical reasons are various but, to me, the most important are that garbage betrays your position to the enemy, as well as your current state (i.e., if you leave evidence of used medical gear behind, like bandages and such).

I threw on my rucksack and picked up my weapon. I pulled out my compass and shot an azimuth to ensure I was facing the right direction and felt for my map case once more as I started to move towards my new objective. As the sun finally began to appear, I caught glimpses of other candidates on their particular routes. As I passed a clearing, I saw two candidates packing their gear together. It looked as though they had just gotten up from a long sleep as they were still wearing their comfort gear. It was interesting to see the same landscape I had crossed just a few hours earlier in a much different light. At night, the low-lying areas, with their thick vegetation seem sinister and inhospitable. But, now bathed in the morning sun, the landscape seemed a beautiful version of jade and brown. Once in a while I would feel the sudden shock of pain on my right shoulder, which would cause me to readjust my rucksack straps. When I was much younger, I tore my anterior rotator cuff in my right shoulder performing a judo technique. It seemed that I re-injured the same shoulder during the obstacle course and later aggravated it with the recent bouts of log and rifle PT. Now, carrying over eighty pounds, the pain was slowly resurfacing.

About four kilometers from my objective, I came across an area that was restricted to our use. On our map, the area was marked by a grey shade that delineated the boundaries and colored anything within. However, that grey area was not apparent during low visibility with a red lens. So, I had included this as part of my route. As daylight came, I became aware of this but decided to wait until I came close to the terrain before I made any changes to the route. Perhaps there would be a non-restricted area near it that was not on the map. As I came within a few meters of the start of the restricted area I saw a large white, black and red sign that read “Private Property: All trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law”. It seemed that the road I had included in my route was actually some kind of vineyard that had either recently been planted, or unsuccessfully planted long ago. The small plants that were growing there, I didn’t recognize the type, were all of one species of plants and tractor tracks were very obvious. Upon closer inspection I also observed hundreds of recent boot prints coming in and out of the area. No doubt, I was not the only person that came across here lately en route for the same objective I was after. Far in the distance down the road, I saw two other candidates marching in my direction of travel. I was aware that another three would soon be coming in the same direction. I figured that it would take a long court case to prosecute dozens of SFAS candidates so I continued towards my objective. The soft sandy texture of the road made for a slower pace than what I was maintaining earlier. However, there was beautiful scenery at either side of the road. One could see other kinds of harvest under the cloudless blue sky. The whole thing reminded me of those orange crops one sees in those Tropicana commercials. It was like walking down the length of one of those paths, between two rows of crops. As the pain in my shoulder became more and more intense, I increased the frequency of my rests. My rests consisted of a twenty-second pause, which I would count with my digital watch. I would bend over to take the weight of my shoulder for a bit and rotate it some. Then, I would walk five hundred meters and pause again. I hoped that the pain would not get any worse than it was now. On the bright side of things I was close to my third objective, had only three more to go and had all of today and half of the following day to find them.

I finally arrived to my objective and quickly handed over my scorecard. The point sitter gave me my new coordinates and provided an MRE on my request. Each point sitter was required to maintain a few boxes of MREs for us candidates should we need one. We each carried four MREs with us, but I preferred to keep mine and use the ones the point sitters provided. I wasn’t sure what the rest of this trek would bring, so I wanted to have some MREs with me at all times. Sure, it kept a few more pounds of weight in my rucksack, but it was not that much. I picked a spot well away from the point sitter and dropped my rucksack against a tree in a little clearing. The grass around me was about three feet tall, so it gave me some privacy. I stripped myself of my wet, sweaty top and placed it over my rucksack to give it some time to dry. I put on the usual comfort gear (dry brown T-shirt, BDU jacket liner and black knit cap) and pulled my quilted poncho liner from the top of the wet weather bag inside the rucksack. I put the poncho liner aside and tore open the MRE. I took my time eating and calmly plotted the next set of coordinates. I had just moved a formidable distance, so I figured that the next movement would probably be a bit shorter. I was not at all impressed when I plotted the new coordinates and found that the movement was even longer by a few kilometers. Damn! Oh well, I resigned myself to that fact and decided to take some time to rest since my shoulder was still throbbing. After eating my MRE and drinking some ORS water, I wrapped myself in the poncho liner and laid my head against the rucksack. It wasn’t particularly cold, but even my BDU pants were wet from sweat and there was a pretty gusty wind coming in. I faded into some uneasy sleep for about thirty minutes as I listened to the wind make the tall grass whistle a soothing tune for the weary.

As I left my third objective I ran across one of the candidates from my side of the hut. He was providing some urgently needed care to his badly blistered feet. We waved at each other as I passed by. I was once again on the “Private Property” and I tried as hard as possible to follow the same footstep someone else had made on the way here. I figured that there was no need to trample someone’s crops all over the place. I heard dogs in the distance and hoped they would not come this way. I was not very interested in fighting-off a pack of wild dogs with a solid plastic M-16. Eventually, the sound of the dogs faded away. My shoulder became a source of great concern, as did a raw spot on the side of my hip that I had been nursing for about a week. The dilemma was that the sore spot on my side was being caused by my rucksack’s waistband that essentially shifted much of the weight away from my shoulders and onto my hips. In order to quell the pain on my side, I would have to undo the waist strap and this would adversely affect my shoulder. On one of my breaks I stopped to look at my side again. The skin was already well into an infection and pus and blood seeped from the wound. I decided that a skin burn would be more tolerable than a torn rotator cuff and that it would do less to threaten the mission. I grunted at the pain as I readjusted the waist strap tight and continued on to my next objective. The route to the next objective followed the same general routes that I had developed for my two previous trips. As I found out later, this was the case with all the candidates. The advantage of using the same routes was that I had become so familiar with the areas and terrain features that I rarely had to consult my map anymore. The disadvantage was the pure torture of not having anything new to look at, or distract me from the little nagging discomforts of my side or my shoulder.


(TBC)